1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to substrate holder devices. More specifically, the invention is related to slide transfer devices and methods of using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pathology or histology lab equipment often have slide holders used to load microscope slides into the equipment. Slide holders for one piece of lab equipment may be incompatible with another piece of lab equipment. By way of example, a slide holder for a stainer may be incompatible for an imaging system, a piece of digital pathology equipment, or an automated slide scanner. In laboratories, slides are often transferred between baskets, cassettes, slide racks, and/or magazines to perform, for example, staining through imaging. It is difficult to transfer slides between slide holders because slide holders often have retaining features (e.g., shelves) at different pitches. Slides are often manually transferred one at a time between slide holders. Unfortunately, the manual transfer process is often time-consuming, resulting in reduced lab throughput. Additionally, slides can break or otherwise be damaged if mishandled.